We have been having a wonderful time out here with family, family we don’t get to see all that often because of the distance. We are the first family visitors, other than a daughter, to have been here in a very long time and we are being treated royally.
We are staying in a very nice, small private campground about 10 minutes away from where my husband’s brother lives and they have been driving us around. The only days we have had to take the van out was Sunday when we took it to get it washed… boy… it was a mess. It took Brian an hour to scrape the bugs off the front. Then I completely cleaned the interior. Yesterday we needed food and a birthday card for a grandson and a post box. But we didn’t have to go far.
It has been wonderful to be set up for 5 days and be able to leave things outside in my bug shelter!
So what have we been doing?
Sunday we went out to Huble House, an historic site important to the fur trade ( yes, we are still hunting beaver this far west) where our niece worked as an interpreter while she attended university here in Prince George.
Monday we had a tour of the teen mental health walk-in clinic sponsored by the local YMCA where our other neice works. What a great model. Foundrybc.ca .. look it up. It’s quite impressive. We certainly could do with something like this at home!
Yesterday afternoon we spent at the community aquatic center. We don’t remotely have a facility like this anywhere close to us. Anything we have is membership only.
It had a 10-lane 50m pool with 2 movable booms for water polo etc and to divide off the shallow water pool on one end and the diving pool on the other end complete with 10m diving tower. The best part was the huge play area with a river and wave pool, hot tub, and steam room. It was impressive. Even more so because we were told this was the ‘old’ pool. What does the new one look like. We had a great time playing around, sitting in the hot tub (we really miss our own) and I even did 10 laps of 50m. each, which would be about 25 laps at our local Y, one for each year since the last time I swam laps. I am now thinking I should get back into swimming again.
Why can we not have public facilities like these in the U.S.?
It was a beautiful sunny day, not particularly hot, but pleasant enough to have everyone back to our campsite for dinner. It’s the first time we have entertained! figuring out how to coordinate dinner for 5 when everything is set for 2 was a challenge. And it was a great meal: salmon on the BBQ, small potatoes in our toaster oven, broccoli in the microwave, big green salad and butter rolls. Watermelon and cookies for dessert and a bottle of rose 🍷. We even had a campfire.
My brother-in-law is a good cook, like his father and his brother and likewise has a wife who doesn’t like to cook. He has given us two excellent meals and my husband has cooked one while we’ve been here. We’ve eaten out the other two nights, tonight with our neice and her roommate.
This morning the two brothers have gone golfing. I stayed back to do some clean up and make preparations for the second half of our trip. Yes, we are only halfway done. What drives out to BC has to drive back! Taking a different route for the return trip although we haven’t done anything in BC yet outside of Prince George. We leave tomorrow for Prince Rupert on the BC coast. It will take us 2 days. We have the ferry booked from Prince Rupert to Port Hardy, an 18 hour trip that goes down the inland passage to Vancouver Island. It should be spectacular.
So this morning, taking advantage of some alone time, I have: defrosted and cleaned out the refrigerator, tidied up the food cupboards, did some baking to shore up our breakfast supplies ( cheese muffins and egg bites with last night’s leftovers), made some sun tea, washed the floor and cleaned the mats, washed dishes and did a load of laundry. We should now be able to start the last half of the trip with everything cleaned up.
Sitting here in my little tent shelter with my blog and a cup of tea. Hopefully I have some time left for some hand sewing. I haven’t talked about my quilt but I brought one with me to hand quilt and it’s almost done. I have also purchased enough fabric along the way to make Canada quilt.
This has been a great way to unwind and relax mid trip. Maybe a nice long walk this afternoon. Temperatures are in the mid 70s.
Prince George is a city in British Columbia, Canada, with a city population of 76,708 and a metro census agglomeration population of 89,490. It is often called the province’s “northern capital”. It is situated at the confluence of the Fraser and Nechako rivers.
Forestry dominated the local economy throughout the 20th century, including plywood manufacture, numerous sawmills and three pulp&pellet mills as major employers and customers. The spruce beetle epidemic of the late 1980s and 1990s resulted in a short term boom in the forest industry as companies rushed to cut dead standing trees before the trees lost value. Sawmill closures (and the creation of ‘supermills’) occurred around 2005, and the largest pellet mill closed in 2022 due to dwindling supply and lack of a sea port. Mining exploration and development may become the future of Prince George. Initiatives Prince George estimates that the Nechako Basin contains over 5,000,000 bbl of oil.
Prince George is also a staging centre for mining and prospecting, and a major regional transportation, trade and government hub.
Post-secondary education choices include the regional College of New Caledonia (CNC), which offers two-year university-transfer courses, plus vocational and professional programs. Several BC universities, British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) and the Open Learning Agency have integrated their local programs with CNC. Prince George is also home to Guardian Aerospace Flight School.
The University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC), established in 1990, is the second-newest university in Canada. A total of 55 undergraduate programs, 15 masters programs and two PhD programs are now offered at UNBC, as well as the new Northern Medical Program, a joint program with the University of British Columbia intended to alleviate the shortage of physicians in the north.
Louise and Brian McLeod Travel Blog 
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